MARC MUNROE DION: The ideal concession speech

Sunday

Sep 23, 2012 at 12:01 AMSep 23, 2012 at 11:16 PM

After waiting a couple of weeks for “recount fever” to die down, I got to thinking and, eventually, to writing.

Not that there really WAS any recount fever, except for the candidates and a small group of the involved. Hardly anyone voted in the election, so the importance of the recounts can easily be overemphasized.

Marc Munroe Dion

After waiting a couple of weeks for “recount fever” to die down, I got to thinking and, eventually, to writing.

Not that there really WAS any recount fever, except for the candidates and a small group of the involved. Hardly anyone voted in the election, so the importance of the recounts can easily be overemphasized.

But, as I said, I was thinking.

Let’s say your name is Pluto Swink (could happen) and you’re running for city/county/state office.
You and your opponent run a clean, informative campaign (could happen) and, when the ballots are counted, you’ve lost by five votes.

Youch! That hurts, doesn’t it?

As soon as you lose, your campaign workers, your supporters and various people who hope you’ll give them a job begin urging you to demand a recount.

Nobody really “demands” a recount. That’s just something they say on television. You lose by five votes, you ask for a recount, you get it.

So, first of all you don’t have to have brains or courage to get a recount. Getting a recount is like getting a glass of ice water in a restaurant. You ask. You get.

But let’s say that you, Pluto Swink, lose by five votes and you get to thinking. Maybe you go someplace where you can be alone for, say, 30 minutes, away from everyone who wants you to give them a job.

And when you come back, you look out at the reporters and your supporters and you say: “I’m not going to ask for a recount.

“I know that I only lost by five votes and I know that, maybe if there was a recount, it would turn out that I’d won.

“But I’ll tell you something,” you tell the reporters. “If people voted and there are only five votes between my opponent and I, then it looks like it’s split down the middle.

“I’m not a sore loser,” you say. “Let’s say we have the recount and it turns out I won by three votes.

“Do you think I want to take office on a three-vote margin?” you say.

“I’d be ashamed,” you tell the reporters. “There was a 20 percent turnout in this election. Frankly, neither me nor my opponent has been able to reach 80 percent of the voting population. You think I’m going to fight over five votes out of the 1-in-5 people who showed up to vote?

“No,” you say.

“My opponent is a good person. We disagree about some things but I believe he’ll try as hard as he can and, if he’s not going to do everything the way I would have done it, so what? He won. I didn’t.

“There are kids in this city/state/county who don’t know what a new textbook looks like. We need more cops.

“You think I’m going to spend thousands of dollars on a recount when there aren’t enough cops to keep people safe?” you ask. “No. I won’t. I’m not that kind of person.

“Everyone who runs for office tells you that he/she really cares about you, that we want what’s best for you.

“But just try and pry us loose from our pension,” you say. “Just try and keep one of us from winning one grimy little election in one tiny part of America.

“You’ll see what we care about then,” you say. “We care about getting elected and we don’t give a damn what it costs.

“Thanks for supporting me, if you did. Get behind my opponent now. He won.

“Will I run in the next election?” you say. “Maybe. Maybe not. It’s not important right now.

“The world’s full of people who will go scuba diving in the wastewater treatment plant just to get elected,” you say proudly.